Category: News September 2021

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Over 2 Million Kenyans Are at Risk of Starvation Due to Ongoing Drought

green leaf tree near mountain covered by snow at daytime

12 October 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

A severe drought affecting half of Kenya has led to an estimated 2.1 million people facing starvation. The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said people living in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) region of the country will be in “urgent need” of food aid over the next six months.

The crisis is the cumulative impact of two consecutive poor rainy seasons coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, diseases and pests, leading President Uhuru Kenyatta declaring the drought a national disaster on 8th September. 

The two previous rainy seasons, the 2020 short rains (October to December) and the 2021 long rains (March to May), were both characterised by late onset rainfall and poor distribution of rainfall, across the ASAL. Furthermore, the upcoming short rains season (October to December 2021) is forecasted to be below average, exacerbating the already deadly conditions facing people living in the region. 

Secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross, Asha Mohammed, highlighted the interplay of several factors in worsening the situation in the region, “You have two seasons of depressed rains, desert locusts ravaging farmlands in the same counties and people fighting over the few resources available. That is the making of a disaster.”

The number of people facing insecurity is expected to rise to nearly 2.4 million from November of this year, according to the latest Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis. 

Due to many open water sources drying up across pastoral agricultural areas, the NDMA has reported that pastoralists have had to walk further in search of water. Household trekking distances to watering points have increased to an average of 2 to 6 kilometers, up from an average of 1 to 5 kilometers. Consequently tensions among communities have risen, as people have had to travel longer distances and along different routes in search of food and water, according to an assessment by the ASAL Humanitarian Network.

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Climate Change Strengthens Hurricanes and Threatens Environmental Justice

Double exposure of Hurricane Ida approaching New Orleans on August 29, 2021.

27 September 2021 – by Ben St. Laurent

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body responsible for assessing the scientific basis for climate change, recently published its 6th Assessment Report (AR6) which strengthened the scientific certainty that human-induced climate change is amplifying the severity of extreme weather events across the globe. According to Sarah Gibbens’ article in National Geographic on the effect of climate change on hurricanes, scientists will spend months modeling Ida’s path under low-emission scenarios to ascertain the impacts of climate change on the storm’s intensity. However, Gibbens notes that on a broader scale scientists have already attributed the increasing intensity of tropical cyclones to warmer ocean temperatures, their increased capacity of precipitation to the increased atmospheric temperature, and their slower crawl over land to weakening of wind currents due to uneven warming. 

The results from a recent study published in Nature cautiously suggests that climate change is also contributing to an increase in the intensification rate of hurricanes, which is associated with “the highest forecast errors and cause a disproportionate amount of human and financial losses,” but indicated the need for further research. Hurricane Ida’s approach to Louisiana’s coastline is evidence of this pattern — the storm intensified at a rate four times faster than required to be considered ‘rapidly intensifying’.  Ida’s rapid intensification was a major factor in Louisiana’s response to Hurricane Ida which gave emergency systems less time to prepare and residents fewer days to evacuate.

In the wake of Hurricane Ida, the internationally recognized meteorologist Marshall Shepherd questions whether public officials need a “new evacuation playbook for an era of rapidly-intensifying hurricanes.” New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell encouraged voluntary evacuations but stated that because Ida intensified more rapidly than city officials were prepared for, it prevented them from issuing a mandatory evacuation. Earlier evacuation could have made a difference for the growing number of lives lost to Hurricane Ida in Louisiana. As of September 9th, 26 Louisiana residents have been killed by Hurricane Ida, with 43 more deaths recorded as Ida swept across the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the country.

Outside of Louisiana, the majority of fatalities were clustered in New York and New Jersey where record-setting rainfall flooded streets, subway stations, and homes. Flooding in New York City has become an environmental justice issue that disproportionately affects impoverished and immigrant communities who are more likely to live in single-exit underground units which don’t meet safety requirements. As flash floods ripped through New York City, water flowed into basement dwellings, killing 11 residents who became trapped in their homes. The impact of flooding on immigrant communities in Queens is part of a larger trend of double displacement observed among communities displaced by various factors who are subsequently at greater risk of displacement from environmental factors. Jennifer Mooklal, a resident of Queens whose neighbors the Ramskriets drowned in their basement apartment as Ida passed over, told the New York Times that residents have “been dealing with this problem for years” but despite their pleas to the city, she feels that “no one is listening….” 

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Historic Levels of Rainfall Across Europe Lead to Deadly Floods

traffic light sign underwater

16 September 2021 – by Evelyn Workman

In mid-July devastating floods hit several European countries, leading to widespread destruction. Record rainfall in many regions, in particular across Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, caused rivers to burst their banks. There have been at least 229 fatalities as a result of the floods. 

Germany was hit with the most devastating consequences of the flooding. With 184 deaths reported, the floods are the most deadly natural disaster in Germany since the North Sea flood of 1962. The brunt of the destruction was witnessed in the district of Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate, where heavy rainfall caused the river Ahr to overflow, destroying many buildings and causing at least 110 deaths. It was reported by the German Weather Service that some areas witnessed the heaviest rainfall in a century.

In the Netherlands, the river Maas in the region of Limburg reached its highest summertime level in over 100 years. The town of Valkenburg aan de Geul was one of the worst hit in the region, with damages assessed to be €400 million, and 700 homes rendered uninhabitable. 

Meanwhile, in Belgium, all 200,000 residents of the eastern city of Liège were urged to evacuate on 15th July due to concerns that the river Meuse would burst its banks. Rainfall was most intense in the east of the country, with records hitting almost 3 times the average rainfall for the month of July. 

While many factors contributed to the floods, scientists say that a warming climate makes extreme rainfall more likely. In the aftermath of the flooding, German chancellor Angela Merkel has called for Germany to step up its fight against climate change. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo declared 20 July a national day of mourning for the lives lost. He said that this disaster “could be the most catastrophic flooding our country has ever seen.”

World Meteorological Organization (WMO) spokesperson, Clare Nullis, has stated that under future climate change scenarios we will continue to witness more extreme weather events such as intense rainfall. Nullis has urged more climate action from all countries, saying: “We need to step up climate action, we need to step up the level of ambition”.

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Thousands Forced to Flee as Wildfires Ravage Turkey and Greece

white smoke coming from a gray clouds

4 September 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz

In recent months, out of control wildfires have brought large-scale blazes across Greece and Turkey, forcing thousands to flee.

According to the European Forest Fire Information system, around 160,000 hectares of forest have burned in Turkey this year, four times the average between 2008-2020. Greece has seen temperatures soar to 45 degrees Celsius – the hottest heat wave in decades. Dozens of villages across both countries have been evacuated, as blazes continue to destroy people’s homes.

Three people have been arrested in suspicion of starting fires, however, officials have been pointing to the wider climate crisis as the underlying catalyst; fires continue to be fed by strong winds and unusually high temperatures.

A report draft recently released by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as part of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, presents some significant findings. The report projects a more accurate Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) estimate: from the previous estimate of 1.5C and 4.5C in 2014, to 2.5C and 4C in 2021, with the best estimate at 3 degrees Celsius. 

The report, written by over 230 leading scientists across the globe, points to areas vulnerable to water stress and wildfires as at high risk of worsening drought. The report makes it clear that in order to avert these outcomes, rapid reductions in CO2 and greenhouse emissions are necessary, or both water shortages and wildfire trends will continue to worsen.